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That Plato should have emancipated himself from the ideas of his

own country and from the example of the East, shows a wonderful

independence of mind. He is conscious that women are half the

human race, in some respects the more important half (Laws); and

for the sake both of men and women he desires to raise the woman

to a higher level of existence. He brings, not sentiment, but

philosophy to bear upon a question which both in ancient and

modern times has been chiefly regarded in the light of custom or

feeling. The Greeks had noble conceptions of womanhood in the

goddesses Athene and Artemis, and in the heroines Antigone and

Andromache. But these ideals had no counterpart in actual life.

The Athenian woman was in no way the equal of her husband; she

was not the entertainer of his guests or the mistress of his

house, but only his housekeeper and the mother of his children.